How do we teach children to think? Lessons from Graph Theory

Recently, I have been working with graph theory algorithms to compute some power system resilience metrics. During the study, I noticed something interesting.

Some of the algorithms look so obvious to a mature human brain, but it took a special brain to formalize them mathematically so that they can be coded and transferred from one machine to another.

So, the Dijkstra's algorithm for computing the shortest path between any two points in a network can be transferred directly from one computer to another without need for any prior learning.

Interestingly, there are things that are so obvious to the matured human mind, but it takes time to develop the skill to master them. The human mind generalizes very complex heuristics through internal learning mechanisms (biological neural networks). But it is not possible to efficiently transfer the learnt skills directly to a new brain.

Transfer learning, a machine learning mechanism where one model's learnt features are transferred to an untrained model, is still a very young field that faces marked challenges. In this paper , I took note of one of them, that is, ?the tasks being dealt with by the two models must have some reasonable similarity.

However, for the human brain, it is still very difficult to perform this kind of transfer even when the tasks have one-to-one similarity. I have realized that the human mind generalizes so many heuristics, and automatically fills instructional gaps such that it becomes difficult to transfer problem-solving skills directly from humans to other humans.

A new human brain, according to the Lockean?empiricism is an empty plate (tabula rasa). It gains knowledge and decision heuristics by sequential experience.

Could new human brains benefit from formalization of instructions to facilitate transfer of logic like the computers do? Could we make algorithmic thinking a thing to teach in normal day-to-day activities as opposed to merely solving mathematical problems?

For instance, if a child is asked to write the process of packing their backpack in a way that no gaps are left in the instructions, instead of merely showing them how to do it, could this make them better problem solvers?

Could this produce a brain with a penchant for mastering problem solving logic? Is it generalizable?